Man, did I just disappear when the I got to the good stuff? So LexVegas was great and I fully took part in the drunk fest that it was. And then some. And then some more. And then, well, yeah...let's just leave it at that.
SO, I arrived back home on my day 12 in time for my day 13 appoinment to check out my follicles and hormone levels. The news was good: I had a couple mature follicles - which are developed egg sacs with mature eggs. Apparently anything that measures over 20 mm? is considered mature - and I had two of them. Yay, left ovary! I took the shot of Ovidrel on Sunday, April 10. Here is the evidence:
It didn't hurt and I didn't mind giving myself the shot - but I'm kinda weird like that.
I went on Monday to collect my lil' buddies - which was a total fiasco thanks to a booking error by the clinic. Basically, while on my 45-minute drive to collect the little swimmers, my wonderful nurse called because she happened to check the schedule because she saw that I had "triggered" aka - took Ovidrel. So yeah, I actually was scheduled for 2 weeks later! NOT GOOD! After some rearranging she got me in basically down the street from the cryobank, but 4 hours later - which required me to:
1) Drive to get swimmers (8:30 a.m.) - 45-minutes
2) Drive home from swimmer bank - 45-minutes
3) Drive swimmers to clinic to thaw - 45-minutes
4) Wait for swimmers to thaw before being inseminated - 1.5 hours
5) Check cycle stats in cool Doctor program while undressing from the waist down - 2 minutes
6)Get inseminated-10 minutes
7) Drive back home (again) - 45-minutes
To say the least it was a LONG day. So, the procedure itself is super easy and barely feels like anything. It was pretty scary though, driving to the clinic and waiting around. I kept thinking to myself - wow, this could be the last time I'm not a mom. I mean, what if I did get pregnant that day? That would be the last day in my life where I did anything without a child in mind. I was a bundle of nerves, and made a call to my dad for some reassuring prayer and some pre-insemination confidence. It made me feel a lot better. Anyway, the insemination went like this:
- Lay on table
- Doctor reviews donor number 6 times to make sure it's the right one
- Doctor tells me I have 6 million live ones after the thaw
- Strange gynecologic device placed in the nether regions to open my cervix
- Disturbingly long tube inserted into nether regions and contents emptied directly into my primed and awaiting uterus
- Lay on table for 7 minutes while timer slowly counts down
- Drive home. Experience mild cramping.
That's pretty much it. I got to do it again (closer to home and only the thaw/wait an hour and a half) routine on the 12th. It took about 20 seconds from lie on table to emptying of the tube the second time. Scheduled blood test for the 26th.
Anyway, right about now I don't feel any different than normal. I think it's too early to feel pregnant - so right now I just feel really fat. Maybe because I want to shove everything into my mouth, probably as a substitute to the alcohol units I haven't had in about 11 days. Perhaps new world record for me.
I'm taking progesterone 2x daily - and that's a whole different experience that I really won't discuss here. I take that to support a pregnancy if I did, in fact, get knocked up. I'm going to start taking pregnancy tests tomorrow because it should be about the time when the Ovidrel is out of my system (it will give false positive until it's completely out of my system). Anyway, won't know for sure until a week from today.
Update: 4/20 at 11:10 - day after I wrote the above (thanks to a Red Eye from SLC via LAX) - took my first pregnancy test today. Very clearly NEGATIVE--no hints or faint additional lines. So, that definitively means the HCG/Ovidrel is out of my system...doesn't mean I'm not pregnant (blood test will be the final rule of thumb), but it's not looking like this cycle will be a one-and-done kind of thing...
